Slashdot Mirror
Opening Salvo Filed In MGM v. Grokster
Aire Libre writes "The first brief on the merits before the Supreme Court in MGM Studios v. Grokster was filed Friday (January 21, 2004) by the Video Software Dealers Association. The brief suggests that while p2p systems may be used for infringing and noninfringing uses, courts should consider whether technologies may be used to reduce infringing uses without over-burdening the system provider, freedom of speech for non-infringing uses (including by copyright owners who want p2p systems to be used to reach their audiences) or freedom of competition (including first sale doctrine principles, and competition in providing all intermediate software and services). Bringing a retailer perspective, it strikes a balance of respect for copyright and respect for the limits of those copyrights. The brief is available here (in PDF)."
Considering this is a very balanced assessment, I'm not sure how it could be characterized as an "opening salvo," or if it could be, who is the salvo directed at?
Can you take away rights of the innocent in order to prevent illegal actions? To me... outlawing p2p (which on its own is legal) to stop illegal file transfers is like outlawing driving cars in order to stop people from speeding.
Chief justice will atleast be serving until June, and this case decision is scheduled for July. How is that going to effect this case? Good/Bad?
While MGM's position may be "balanced", there's always one thing that irks me about DRM: it makes it impossible to use in the public domain later.
The very least a movie/music/software company must do to gain my approval is to deposit their materials to the Library of Congress unencumbered and DRM-free.
Copyright is supposed to let creators make money on their work for a limited time in exchange for making it freely available later.
Obligatory Disclaimer: IANAL
The author's summary is correct, but as far as I know, the lawsuit was filed precisely because Grokster refused to incorporate any anti-piracy measures into its network. Grokster will become the next Napster if it does so.
E = m c^3 Don't drink and derive E = m c^3
While I agree for the most part with what you're saying, I don't think the dns system qualifies as p2p. At least not any more than the www does. DNS requests work by disecting the hostname in question piece by piece. For example, www.slashdot.org. I dns query for this by joe user would start by querying the dns server (which is just a cache mainly) of their isp. This dns server would in turn query one of the root name servers (or whoever owns .org) for the dns server that controls slashdot.org. The isp dns server would then query the dns server that controls slashdot.org, and ask it if it knows the ip address for www.slashdot.org. Slashdot can either answer with an ip address or refer it to yet another dns server.
This chain of events does not really seem at all like a p2p app. Sorry.
Doubtful. It's neither affordable, nor convenient, nor the most successful distribution systems. It's just the most profitable. Compare iTunes and similar to buying CDs: there is a better, cheaper way, and I'm inclined, after reading this, to write it off -- "literally thousands" doesn't cut it -- "literally hundreds of thousands" or "literally millions" would be much more successful , and not impossible.
There's a lot of verbiage in this brief, but what it comes down to is the VSDA is asking the court to overturn Betamax and rule for MGM, just in a way that doesn't hurt the VSDAs interests. That's a bad thing. There's no good that can come of this decision, only a lack of harm -- which is that Betamax is upheld and Grokster wins.
The VSDA can probably see which way the wind's blowing and is trying to limit the damage to them.
> should consider whether technologies may be used to reduce infringing uses without over-burdening the system provider
This is an impossible goal. Here's why:
Every automated solution for reducing copyright infringement over P2P has always had one thing in common: sniffing and filtering data at some level.
Every data-sniffing solution has one of two basic architectural directions: centralized or distributed. If you pursue the centralized direction, you will rapidly encounter enormous scaling problems. If you pursue the distributed direction, you will rapidly encounter enormous management problems.
These difficulties are tremendously compounded by the fact that neither the P2P developers, the ISPs, nor their customers have any natural incentive for doing any of this. The "incentive" can come only from the heavy fist of the law.
The natural reluctance to deploy these unwanted, legally-mandated solutions will inevitably result in a "swiss cheese" environment. We know from past experience that massive numbers of people can learn very quickly where the holes are in the swiss chesse that allow them unfiltered access to the content they seek.
And that's the best case scenario. A more realistic scenario will be something like a repeat of SDMI, which failed so miserably that the public wasn't even mildly inconvenienced by it.
That is a very shortsighted view and the direct cause of very bad and very broken law.
You do NOT decide a case and create law based on whether you are sympathetic to the current defendant or not. You cannot willy-nilly imprison or sue anyone you dislike and randomly ruling to protect anyone you do like. We live by the rule of law, and if you make a BAD rule so you can "get at" someone you dislike then that rule *is* going to equally apply to those you do like, such as the Domain Name System.
The law is that the make of a product with substantial non-infringing use is not liable if someone else happens to commit infringment while using that product. That legalism was spelled out in the Betamax case when the MPAA tried to attack VCRs. Perhapse this phrase rings a bell: "the threat of videocassette recorders to the film industry was like that posed by the Boston Strangler to a woman alone".
There are only two possibilites if you want P2P to be liable. You either have to reverse the Betamax ruling, with the rather insane sesult that VCR makers are afoul of the law, or you have to find some rational and consistant basis that this case is different from the VCR case. And that rational consistant basis would also need some magic way of distinguishign this case from some potential future case where someone DOES decide to sue the over DNS.
You can't just rule at random against anything you dislike. Any basis for ruling against the Grokster side is almost certain to result in bad logic and bad precident and have the logical consequence of things like e-mail and DNS winding up liable as well.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.